This examination of the everyday lives of ordinary Jews in Germany focuses on emotions, perceptions, and mentalities. How did they construe changes brought about by industrialization? How did they decide to enter new professions? How did they fit into newly flourishing organizational life? Could one both be a German and a Jew? How did Jews re-evaluate their multiple identities before and after emancipation, during the Weimar era, under Nazi persecution? Jews' attitudes toward and observances of their religion shifted not only over time, but also within a lifetime. Within frequently hostile pol ... More

This examination of the everyday lives of ordinary Jews in Germany focuses on emotions, perceptions, and mentalities. How did they construe changes brought about by industrialization? How did they decide to enter new professions? How did they fit into newly flourishing organizational life? Could one both be a German and a Jew? How did Jews re-evaluate their multiple identities before and after emancipation, during the Weimar era, under Nazi persecution? Jews' attitudes toward and observances of their religion shifted not only over time, but also within a lifetime. Within frequently hostile political, social, and, cultural structures, Jews were not just victims, but also agents: they deciphered and re-framed events, and even when they adapted to German culture, often did so through a process of negotiation, retaining elements of Jewish culture. Nonetheless, a pervasive antisemitism affected self-reliance, self-respect and self-determination. Still, from the mid-19th century through the Weimar Republic, Jews achieved success amidst and despite antisemitism. In Imperial Germany, Protestants and Catholics, Prussians and Bavarians, and workers and employers were more hostile to each other than to the tiny Jewish minority — hovering at around 1 per cent of the population. A variety of German behaviors emerge in the everyday history of Jewish life that would rarely be apparent from other perspectives. This approach forces us to acknowledge diversity among Germans and inhibits the tendency to read the history of Jews and Germans backwards from the Holocaust.